Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus are asking Louisiana Governor, Kathleen Blanco, to pardon Mychal Bell and the Jena 6. Governer Blanco says she can’t issue a pardon without a recommendation from the State Pardon Board. Since such a recommendation is unlikely to materialize, the CBC’s request is best interpreted as a statement of concern and support. As such, it is most welcome. At least it shows that some of the folks who rallied around the Jena 6 in September are still thinking ab0ut the boys two months later.
Meanwhile, the white supremacists who are planning to march on Jena on Martin Luther King Day are now suing the central Louisiana town. They don’t see why they can’t disrupt the traditional route of Jena’s traditional MLK parade or why they can’t show up on the streets of Jena fully armed.
After initially welcoming the support of the unapologetically racist Nationalist Movement, Jena mayor Murphy McMillin has recovered his senses. He isn’t denouncing the Nationalists (who once rallied in support of the cops who beat up Rodney King), but he isn’t sidling up to them either . . . a marked improvement in form, you will agree.
The Nationalist Movement says that if their demands aren’t met they won’t be marching in January; sort of a “my way or we won’t hit the highway” proposition.
That will be just fine with the folks in Jena and everybody else. The last thing Jena needs is a bunch of jackbooted thugs marching in support of law, order, guns, God, and Justin Barker.
In the end, neither the Congressional Black Congress nor the Nationalist Movement will decide how this saga plays out. The only players that matter are the attorneys representing the Jena 6, district attorney Reed Walters, and Judge JP Mauffray. Don’t expect major developments in the dwindling days of 2007, but January should be an interesting month.
Black Caucus Seeks Pardon for Jena 6
Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said in a letter to Blanco this week that Bell and the other teens have paid their debt to society and should be immediately pardoned.
“They and their families have suffered enough, as has the State of Louisiana and the town of Jena,” the letter reads.
Blanco’s press secretary, Marie Centanni, said Friday in a statement the governor cannot grant a pardon or commutation without a recommendation to do so from the state Pardon Board.
Blanco leaves office Jan. 14. The next Pardon Board meeting is scheduled for Jan. 17.
Fourteen other members of the caucus joined Lee in urging Blanco to support releasing Bell, who was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile facility on Dec. 3 for his role in an assault last year on Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School.
An e-mailed request for comment from Blanco was not immediately returned.
Bell pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery in return for a deal that gave him credit for the 10 months he had already served. Without the deal, the 17-year-old faced being placed in a juvenile facility until his 21st birthday.
Although he has only about eight months left to serve in the case, Bell is serving a separate 18-month sentence for previous juvenile charges unrelated to the Barker dispute. He has about 16 months left on that sentence, which runs concurrently with the sentence in the Barker case.
The charges against Bell and the others sparked a huge civil-rights demonstration in Jena in September. The activists said prosecutors treated blacks more harshly than whites.
Three months before the attack on Barker, three other white teens were accused of hanging nooses from a tree at the high school. The three were suspended from school but were never criminally charged.
LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, in an e-mailed statement Thursday, said the attack on Barker was not just a schoolyard fight “but rather an unprovoked, unforeseen assault on a young man who had nothing to do with the hanging of the nooses.”
Charges against Robert Bailey Jr., 18; Carwin Jones, 19; Theo Shaw, 18 and Bryant Purvis, 18 have been reduced from attempted murder to aggravated second-degree battery. The last suspect was charged as a juvenile and not identified.
Friends of Justice 
MYCHAL AND MURPHY CHALLENGED
JENA – Mayor Murphy McMillin didn’t seem to mind that, just months earlier, the
Third U.S. Circuit of Appeals had struck down bonds and hold-harmless clauses on
Nationalists as unconstitutional. Or, that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled hat any
“financial-burden” upon Nationalists rallying violated the First Amendment.
McMillin defiantly banned the “Jena-Justice-Day” parade, unless Nationalists
posted a $10,000.00 bond and signed a damage-indemnification clause. Nationalists
immediately sought a federal-court order, prohibiting the Mayor’s interference. An
identical order was issued by the federal court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 2003.
McMillin defended his ban by stating that Al Sharpton, who the Nationalists are
protesting, had posted the money. “He could put down his gold chains, his gold
rings, his gold watch and, even his gold teeth,” retorted Richard Barrett. “He could
even put down those hundred-dollar bills that Robert Bailey is stuffing in his mouth,
but it does not empower a Mayor to charge for freedom of speech or freedom of
assembly.” Bailey is one of the “Jena Six” who had boasted of receiving a fortune
from admirers, pleased that he and his gang had beat up a white teen. Barrett told
the Louisiana Network that the January 21st ceremonies would proceed at the LaSalle
Parish Courthouse at Noon, for pro-majority-residents, minus the parade “if the matter
is still tied up in court.” Barry Hackney told the Associated Press that the Nationalists
would have preferred to have lifted the restrictions “outside the courtroom,” but that
McMillin had “forced us into court.”
“We think that the people who come to support law and order and for equal justice
under law should have the same rights as Al Sharpton and his gang of criminals
and people who are supporting criminality,” declared Hackney, whose slogan is
“You’re Through” to Mychal Bell, who has pleaded guilty to assault. Five other
Negroes are awaiting trial. Sharpton had sported “Free the Jena Six” at his
Jena Invasion.
Parish-officials have imposed no obstacles and state-police are proceeding with
security-plans, in conjunction with the Nationalists. Brian Moran, the spokesman for
the “Jena Six,” had already announced that the event “cannot be stopped.” “Given
the substantial expense that could be levied upon a speaker, and the almost
limitless possibility of abuse, it is an understatement to conclude that this provision
chills constitutionally-protected speech,” ruled the Philadelphia appellate-court.
http://www.nationalist.org/ATW/2008/010101.html#2
© 2007 The Nationalist Movement
“unapologetically racist Nationalist Movement”
isn’t the CBC pretyy much “unapologeticaly racist” as well? After all, don’t they exclude whites and other non-blacks from membership?
And calling for a pardon of the so-caled “Jena 6”? Just imagine the reverse:six whites involved in a gang attack on a black and the black victim rendered unconcious by the attackers and hospitalized. I really doubt that even David Duke would call for the pardon of the attackers . Unless you’re using very “complex” Marxist-Leninist dialectics this makes the CBC more racist than David Duke.